I watched the Penguins/Stars game last night. In the 3rd period the Pens led 3-2 and were on a power play. Mike Modano had a short-handed break-away and was hooked from behind by Martin Straka. The Officials called for a penalty shot which Modano took and did not convert.
Now, the Penguins were allowed to finish the last 50 seconds of their power play. If the official had not called a penalty shot, the Stars would have negated the last 50 seconds of the Pens power play and had 70 seconds of their own. It seemed to me, given the unlikelyhood of making the penalty shot (what is the likelyhood of making a penalty shot?) that they should have opted for the 2 minutes of power play. Could they have done this?
False assumption. Last year, penalty shots have succeeded 28.1% of the time. The highest power play goal percentage is 22.9% and the NHL average was 15.6%. The penalty shot is the higher percentage play.
In the past, I’m talking 1980’s; a 22.9% PP was on the weak end of the spectrum. Historically, goalies have had the lion’s share of success in the penalty shot realm. Heck, the 28.1% number even shows that.
IMHO, NHL refs should be calling more penalty shots than they do. The fans love them, and they are TV friendly. They often aren’t called when they should be, and I feel that refs, at their discretion, should be able to call more.
As to last night’s game, the officiating was horrible. I and don’t say that as a Stars fan, but as a hockey fan. The refs screwed up big time when they didn’t call Kevin Stevens for tackling Rob DiMaio (or was it Shaun VanAllen?) in the neutral zone and that play lead directly to a Pens goal. Then later in the third DiMaio get 2 minutes for taking a crosscheck to the kidney from ‘Kaspar the unfriendly defenceman’.
As to the OP, no you can’t refuse a penalty shot, often times would like to. Also, you can’t refuse a power play, again some teams would like to on occasion.
Penalty shot success rates were also higher back then.
Back in the 60s, the success rate in the NHL was around 80%, though penalty shots were much rarer, since they were close to an automatic goal back then.
The drop in the success rate is probably due to a combination of better goalies and the death of the wrist shot.
This is hockey people, not football! You can’t decline the penalty.
Hockey’s rulemakers tend to frown upon rules that give teams sneaky advantages. Roger Nielson claimed that when his team was down 2 men and the other team had a breakaway, he would just tell one of his players on the bench to go out on the ice and create a too many men penalty. Since you can’t be more than 2 people down, you would just hold the other penalty in escrow.
The rule has since been modified to give the other team a penalty shot in that situation.
I don’t think you are allowed to decline the penalty shot, but I think it would be a good idea to allow that. It would mostly be useful in situations where you have a 1-goal lead late in the game. If you have a 2-minute power play and play defensively, it’s almost impossible for the other team to get a scoring chance.